


We planted flowers of warning

by aphrodite_mine



Category: Black Swan (2010)
Genre: Eating Disorders, F/F, Masturbation, Weight Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-12
Updated: 2011-08-12
Packaged: 2018-02-12 19:44:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2122392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aphrodite_mine/pseuds/aphrodite_mine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>nataixoco requested Black Swan, Nina/Lily, if i could have a second skin, i’d probably dress up in you</p>
            </blockquote>





	We planted flowers of warning

Four years with Thomas, and all she’s ever wanted is to be the one he chose. To be the best. To be the perfect choice, the perfect dancer, the perfect everything.  
And so, she develops an eye for it all. Comparing her pliés, comparing the shape of her thigh to the other girls, to Veronica, to Michelle, to Laura. Girls, perhaps, more exotic, more lovely, but never more disciplined. She manages to catch a glimpse of the scale as Veronica steps off, the tiniest thrill running through her, the need to maintain her lead. The skin around her ribs isn’t tight enough.

She counts out the rhythm of the subway, feeling the muscle memory tug at her back, her shoulder, her lungs. And suddenly, in the repeated flashes of light between stations, she knows that things are about to change.

–

Her name is Lily. Natural and wild, she is suddenly everywhere. Sprouting up. Blooming.

–

She can recognize any of the girls from stance, from muscle and fat, from behind. Faceless. When Veronica is measured for costumes, Eliza makes a clucking noise, the back of her throat, as she measures around her natural hip. Michelle has a stubborn instep. She fights it well, but fights it. Laura puts on her shoes left foot first.

But this girl, this girl, she doesn’t run by the same clock. She slams doors and smiles and doesn’t rush down hallways. Her scent – the ocean, maybe, with flowers – is cloudy. Nina cannot calculate her, the numbers jumble in her head when Lily smiles. Her white teeth forming a crescent, her leotard scooping low, her wings at rest.

–

The imprecision feels like grit in her teeth, steps out of choreography, out of rhythm, but still, somehow perfect.

Exquisite. Like a jewel, flawed.

Nina carves herself out of the earth but doesn’t have the same shine. Thomas’s hand on her shoulder, heavy.

–

By the second glass of champagne she is dizzy, but steady on her feet out of practice. The bubbles mix with butterflies and it comes up, no mess on the endless miles of her gown, her skin cold where she presses the back of a hand. She takes a breath, leaning against the stall door, her back straight. The synthetic material is cold, rushing up and down her spine.

Her shoulder itches.

There is a moment, when she washes her hands… Nothing, nothing. And there is knocking at the door, a rush, and a trick of the light. She collects herself (the lipstick is in her clutch) and opens the door.

Hurricane Lily.

She braces herself, unable to walk away without shaking, crumbling maybe. The music of Lily’s words jump around her, triggering the 1-2-3, 1-2-3 of her heartbeat. “I should go.”

“Stay. Keep me company.”

–

There is nothing to do but watch herself in the mirror (eyes too big, lips too chapped, there — a hair out of place) and pretend she cannot hear the steady stream under Lily’s words. “Have I told you that you look — looked — incredible up there? The way the lights hit you and Thomas… I’m sure it was intentional. But there was–” she pushes out of the stall, still tugging at her dress, “something ethereal about it.”

She watches Lily through the mirror, turning on the faucet, dancing her fingers underneath.

“I, yes. Well. Thank you.”

Lily smiles (again) and reclaims her hose from her clutch. “It’s nothing. Just giving you a compliment.” She lifts a leg to rest her foot against the edge of the counter, finding her toes in the sheer tights.

And for the briefest of moments, out of the corner of her eye, Nina can see up Lily’s skirt. She doesn’t look away; her eyes cast downward in the mirror, her throat working silently.

The numbers don’t surface, she doesn’t attempt to visually measure, to compare the shadows between Lily’s thighs to her own.

And in the silence of Nina’s mind, Lily speaks again. “I wish it were warm enough to go bare-legged, you know? These take all the fun out of wearing a dress.”

“Mm.”

She lowers her leg, steps into the other foot. Slips one at a time into her shoes.

Nina can’t remember, later, which one came first.

–

And when she touches herself, arching against her fingers, whispering against her pillow, she does not think of things she knows, but the mystery. The darkness, and the light.

A curtain of hair following the movements of a turn, sweeping against her arm.

Her mouth open, her thighs parted.

Lightning on her fingertips.


End file.
